A Life Worth Rewatching
by eleanna99
Summary: "They say that when you're about to die, your whole life flashes before your eyes." And Finnick Odair was dying.


**Disclaimer: **I don't own the Hunger Games.

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"_They say that when you're about to die, your whole life flashes before your eyes," his grandfather, with his white hair and beard and sea-green eyes so similar to his said once. He would often say these deep philosophical things while the two of them were fishing back in District Four, staring into the ocean, probably just thinking aloud, forgetting his grandson was in the boat with him. He then seemed to have forgotten it and suddenly got all hyper, ordering the boy to help him gather the fishing net…_

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The lizard mutt that was the closest to him let out a hiss that was probably as close to a laugh as it could get as they all stared at Finnick with those complicated both human and serpent features of theirs. And as the first of them charged towards him with its huge teeth ready to separate his head from his body, that moment from all those years ago came to his mind. His grandfather was right, after all.

He saw him again. Not in that damp filthy tunnel, but back home, in his old white boat, surrounded by nets and fishing poles. Wearing his casual grey hat, he smiled as he got closer to the five-year-old, taking his little hands into his callused ones and showing him how to properly attach bait to a fishhook. And later, the same boy sitting with his legs crossed on the ancient collapsing jetty at the marina, playing with a wooden trident taller than him, while the older man tried to sell the fish he had caught that morning.

Then he was nine and jumping from roof to roof, racing to the port with his friends as the sun set and the boats came back. Somehow he always came first and when the others would ask him how, he would just shrug and say "the fact that we've been swimming all our lives doesn't mean that we should be afraid to fly." The children wouldn't understand and the grown-ups would be impressed by the wise words that had come out of such a young mouth, but even he didn't realize the notability of his words; all he meant was that he was the only one who chose to climb on the white flat roofs as a shortcut, than take the narrow alleyways which led to the beach.

But he suddenly turned fourteen and those wings that helped him fly were cruelly cut off when the escort's orange glowing hand went into that bowl -while the girl who had been reaped was crying and screaming in the corner- and then he took out a piece of paper and when he talked in the microphone again, two words came out of his mouth. "Finnick Odair!". He didn't cry nor did he shout, like the girl did, he just walked on the stage and accepted his fate. If anyone could really see him at that moment though, they would see that something was different in his eyes; the usual light was missing, but it was replaced by a promise, a promise to his family, a promise to his District. "I will come back," they said.

Everything was silver for a while, like the parachute that literally fell from the sky, leading a trident and a net down to the boy who was starting to feel despair rising up in him, because that was a forest and not a place for someone who had grown up inside the water. He knew how to run and he knew how to fight, but so did the others. The only thing that made him different was his good looks, fishing, swimming and in this case, knowing how to handle a trident and a net. It was time to start catching people instead of fish. That didn't mean it didn't hurt though, seeing the looks on the other tributes' faces as they got trapped, that look of begging and horror for most of them. There was just one though, a girl from District Eight with nothing special on her, despite the fact that she looked so _ready._ Her eyes were begging too, but for something else. _Do it,_ they said. And just when he was ready to make the strike the girl spoke, in a voice way too serious for her age, so serious that Finnick afterwards thought that maybe it had been just in his head. "I was dead the moment my name came out of that bowl," she stated, neither fear nor agony in her voice. "Just make it fast." And after that, every time a tribute was caught in his net, he aimed directly for the heart.

He was lost in Mags' hug which threatened to break his bones, her laugh a true melody in his ears as he collapsed into her arms the moment he got out of that hovercraft. In that moment, he allowed himself to cry, all those tears that had been kept inside him for way too long. Because that was too much for a fourteen-year-old, even if his name was Finnick Odair. "You made it, boy," the woman said, the smile obvious in her voice. _Twenty-three people are dead and I'm alive,_ Finnick thought and it both thrilled him and terrified him. "We're going home."

But they weren't, not really. A couple of years passed and then Snow took him. The Capitol took him and it made him its instrument. Everyone loved him after the Games, he was one of the favorite victors of all time, as many people informed him. Was that good? For him, definitely not. It meant he had to put on that horrid façade and attend every single party and event and smile and flirt and wink at women who in most cases ended up in his bed. God, there was so many women. He just waited for the night to be over and then he abandoned them, making sure he left something as a sweet note or a rose on the pillow, just so that they wouldn't hate him, because it was Snow's orders that everyone should love him. Some of the women were even pretty, though. But he didn't notice, he never did. Why didn't he notice?

_Annie._

Whatever else last-living-second memory he had it was all drowned by a wave of brown curls and two deep green eyes. Her image overwhelmed his brain and he was certain of what he would miss the most in the world.

He saw her again, four years old, holding a blonde mermaid doll with a blue tail, sitting on a wicker chair with her feet barely touching the ground as her mother was cutting open some fish. His granddad always gave some fish to the Crestas, a family with two very hard-working parents, but still too many mouths to feed. Finnick was always the one who brought the food in a big basket as his grandpa was too busy selling the rest at the port and Annie's mother would always mess with his bronze hair and sometimes give him a starfish. The girl would just give him a shy smile and go back to her doll. The starfish collection in his room in District Four was the only thing that reminded him of the kind redhead woman who he barely saw after a while, as the mouths became less but the sorrow became many times greater, with a son lost in the Games.

Annie though, he would see her more and more. Mostly at school, where they would just exchange a few friendly words, but that changed when she set up a counter next to their own, not with fish, but with coral jewelry. They were truly beautiful and they were all handmade by her, trying to help her family in any way she could. She was just thirteen back then, the year Finnick got reaped. But she had a loud voice that became so familiar to him after hearing her shout for months, advertising her products and desperately, even if it wasn't showing, trying to get people to spent a little of their time and a few of their coins to help a withering family. The two of them would share looks and giggles and jokes, Finnick giving her starfish or corals every time she didn't manage to get enough money and Annie smiling and handing him the most beautiful necklaces. He would try to pay her, but she would just say "it goes well with your eyes" and walk away. That necklace she gave to him the last day before the Reaping, that's what he wore as a reminder of home in the Arena.

Then he got into the Games and then he got out, but he was popular and everyone was so proud of him. He had won and he was living in the Victor's Village, where life was much easier, but so lonelier, his grandfather terribly ill and his boat in no condition to get back in the sea. They didn't need the fishing money to live and it wasn't like he missed the sea; he had plenty of time to go there for a swim or just to sit and stare at the horizon. What he missed was the girl with the strong voice and the even stronger personality who he only could steal glances of. Snow came and Finnick left and Annie was still selling jewelry, certain that she would never see the boy with eyes that looked so much like the sea ever again.

But she did, but he wasn't Finnick, the little boy with the wooden trident anymore and she wasn't Annie with her blue-tailed blonde mermaid. He was nineteen and she was eighteen. He was a Capitol star and she was still selling handmade jewelry. He was a mentor and she was a tribute. She asked him to stay in the room while she was saying goodbye to her family, afraid that if he didn't she would break down. And so he did, and he kept his emotions hidden as her mother and her father and her two little sisters came in all at once and hugged her. And the girls cried and the parents cried, there were so many tears. He hated seeing her eyes red and swollen, but he couldn't talk, he couldn't interrupt. He knew what this last meeting meant; the Crestas had already lost a kid in the Hunger Games and they were about to lose another. Of course they loved their daughter, but they knew what the Arena was like. It was a slaughter and definitely no place for such a delicate girl. So he didn't talk. Only when her parents left and she buried her face in his chest did he react. He guided a hand through her curls and another on his back as he held her close and tight and five years after the day he was reaped he made another promise, not too different from the one he had made back then. This time though, it wasn't just in his eyes. "I'll get you out of there, Annie," he whispered, and it wasn't just fake-promising words to comfort a dying girl. It was her turn not to talk.

He watched her in the Tributes Parade, in her blue dress, designed to look like the sea, which was beautiful, much better than what they had created for previous tributes, but not beautiful enough at the same time. She was pretty as always, more to Finnick's eyes than to anyone else's, but she wasn't Capitol pretty. She wasn't radiant and even though Finnick kept staring at her, it didn't earn more than a few glances from sponsors. And she needed them, she needed them so much, because he also watched her train and once again, she was good, but not good enough to stay alive in the slaughter. She knew how to make fish hooks and tie knots, but how were these going to help her? The Arena could be anything, from a snowy mountain to a sandy dessert and different skills were needed in each occasion. He stayed awake night after night, trying to figure out how he was going to save her, but he came up with nothing.

She was ready to get on the hovercraft but not ready to die and he only had a few minutes with her. Mags was in the next room with the male tribute, a fourteen-year-old boy, to whom Finnick tried to be friendly and sympathetic, but never actually did more than that. So he let him with Mags, who already had experience with mentoring young boys. He said all the advice he had heard as a tribute, all the advice he had given as a mentor to tributes before her. _Don't stay at the Cornucopia. Run. Find water. If you are not sure about your ability to kill someone, don't directly fight him. Stay hidden._ It all sounded so stupid in his head, but he had to say them nonetheless, because he was responsible for her and one of them could save her life. "I know," Annie said and stared into his eyes. There was a long moment of silence and then there was a knock on the door and a call for the girl to get out and into the aircraft. It just occurred to Finnick that the next thing that would come out of his mouth could possibly be his last words to her, so he tried to think what was the best thing to say. _Good luck?_ It sounded too ironic. _Please don't die?_ No way. The thoughts came to his mind one after another and he discarded them all, until Annie got him out of the trouble, as he grabbed the collar of his shirt and crashed her lips onto his. The kiss was pure electricity, something that was known not to get along with water, but that was the thrill of it. He responded enthusiastically but the moment his fingers found her hair there was another knock on the door and she pulled away. "I've wanted to do that for a while now and I figured this was practically my last chance," she explained, with a sad smile playing on her lips. "Goodbye, Finnick," she said and just like that, she was out of the room, living him still like a statue, trying to process what had just happened. _She doesn't believe she can make it, _a little voice in the back of his head whispered.

The bloodbath passed and she was okay. She found water. One day, two days, still fine. She stayed hidden. But then she found a little boy hidden in a cave and it was Troy, from her District. She formed an alliance with him, which didn't seem like a good idea to Finnick because she knew that if she wanted to get out, she would have to kill everyone, even her allies. He knew that she could kill a couple of people, but Troy? Never. It did turn out to be a wrong decision, but for another reason. Some would say that the worst thing was to kill your friends, but watching your friends get killed and not being able to do anything about it was pretty hard too. Annie was hiding among the branches of a tree while Troy was down to get food. He was late. She heard his scream and she looked through the leaves, the moment the Career's axe went straight through his neck. She screamed, but her hands instinctively moved and covered her mouth so that no sound came out. But Finnick saw her on the screens, he saw her shaking and she saw rivers of tears running down her cheeks. And then, when she was alone and far from everyone she screamed, a scream that made his blood freeze in his veins and his heart miss a beat. _Even you don't believe she is going to make it, not after that, _the voice in his mind made itself known again.

The flood came, though. Water everywhere, a tide that came and left nothing behind. Well, almost nothing. Because Annie could swim before she could walk, so that was what she did. She kicked her legs and arms, trying to stay afloat, small cries escaping her lips every time a body floated next to her, only the back of the tribute showing above the surface. Cannon sound after cannon sound. She tried to keep count, try to calculate for how much longer she would have to fight the water, but she lost it after a while. All she knew was that it was dark when the wave came and the sun came up and it went down again, until a hovercraft picked her up. _I'm not dead! _she wanted to scream, but she was dehydrated and so, so tired that for a moment she thought that maybe she actually was dead and all that was a hallucination. However, the hovercraft wasn't there to pick up a lifeless body, but a victor.

They had gotten a victor, but the victor had lost her sanity. Or that was what everyone believed to be true. Everyone except Finnick, because above all, Finnick knew Annie. She was not mad, she was just a person who had been through way too much for a single lifetime. With him, though, she was okay. She was like… a suitcase with too many clothes. Most of the times, she was fine and the memories were silently sleeping inside her. But every now and then the zips broke and everything came out. And it was too much for her. She would scream and she would cry, reliving the fear for her life, Troy's beheading, her days in the Arena all over again. The only one who could calm her, fix the zips and put everything back in was him, who did his best to always be there, both during the day and during the nights, when she got just a couple of hours of sleep because of the horrible nightmares that tortured her. He would get into her room and hold her tight, comforting her, until the tears dried out and she was too tired to keep her eyes open.

There was the water too. They lived in District Four and it was everywhere around them. But Annie didn't see it as the element she grew up in anymore; no, for her it was a fatal compound of hydrogen and oxygen which took the lives of so many people but for some reason spared hers. Finnick would take her to the beach and grab her delicate but strong hands, with scars from fishhook wounds on her knuckles and gently pull her towards him into the sea. He would usually keep it at knee level, but some days she was fine and they walked a bit further; others she would scream after a few steps, throw herself into his arms and cry for him to get her out.

Snow destroyed his life once again. He heard his name being read from a little piece of paper at the Quarter Quell reaping and it was like living in his worst nightmare; though there was no waking up. Just when he thought things couldn't get worse, he heard Annie's name being called and she heard her scream. It was nothing compared to her scream in the Arena, but it still made his heart sink and had him want to run to her and hug her, or try to convince everyone it was a mistake. He quickly understood it was not a mistake, though, so he started making plans in his head, plans about how he would manage to get her out of the Games for the second time, even if it meant he would have to give his life in the process. Annie would live, end of story. But his planning was interrupted by an old grey-haired woman who walked in front of Annie, raising her hand and muttering something very few could hear. "It turns out we have a volunteer!" the escort announced and as soon as Annie was done hugging Mags, he approached the woman and hugged her gently. Mags, he's kind, lovely Mags. She was his family when he stopped having one, she made sure he didn't lose his life before and now she was making sure he wouldn't lose his whole world. Even if she had to sacrifice herself.

Then there was his interview with Caesar, where he recited his poem and, despite the whole situation, had to suppress a smile as he saw all those women in the audience faint, thinking it was about them. They would never know, they could never understand, these shallow vain people, that there was such a thing as true love. That the Capitol sweetheart who had slept with half of the city's female population and flirted with the whole of it, wasn't as flirtatious and careless as he looked like. That Finnick Odair was in love with a mad girl from District Four instead of a famous rich lady from the Capitol. He liked to consider that as a small act of defiance.

The real act of defiance came later though. _Save the Mockingjay, _that was the order. And so he did. He became her ally and she helped her survive in one of the most challenging arenas ever made. She heard her laugh when they finally managed to get some relax time on the beach and she heard her screams during the jabberjay attack. Oh, that attack. She ran towards Annie's screams on impulse and of course he understood it was just the birds after a while. But still, it was the most heart wrenching hour of his life, hearing her scream and not being able to react. After all, jabberjays just say exactly what they hear, and where did they hear Annie's screams?

In the Capitol possibly, where she was held a prisoner while Finnick was in District Thirteen. He couldn't function without her. He couldn't think properly, having in mind that she was locked up in a cell somewhere, while he was so far away from her. He tied knots on a rope to keep himself sane and it sort of worked. But one day the others went on a mission. And all of them came back, but all he could focus on was the woman at the end of the corridor, shouting his name and running towards him. Annie crashed into him and they fell onto a wall and then they collapsed on the floor, neither willing to let go. There must have been other people there too, but he didn't care, he was so past the point of caring. Annie was there and he was there and they were both alive. So they got married. There was no formal proposal. They were just lying in bed one night, her head on his chest, hearing his steady heartbeat and he asked her, simple as that. They got married in borrowed clothes, with a foreign priest, in a District that supposedly didn't exist, but it still was the best day of his life. Annie's complete happiness afterwards made a constant smile appear on his face and he knew that their lives could be better, but at that moment he wouldn't change a thing.

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…_But that one time, Finnick Odair, back then just an eleven-year-old who laughed too loudly, actually paid attention to his grandpa's words. Pulling the net tightly with his strong hands, he looked at the older man who was focused as always on his work, the one that brought up generation after generation, he calmly replied. "Then I will make it a life worth re-watching."_

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**Author's Note:** This is my first Hunger Games fanfic ever. I just love Finnick and Annie as a couple and after watching Catching Fire my feels rose to the surface again. I hope you enjoyed this and as always, some reviews would be great!


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